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Atari 800XL Keyboard to PC..decoder?


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hi,

doing a project here that involves turning a 2600 to a PC, whilst keeping the original look. :)

anyways, I want to use an old, non working 800XL to use as the keyboard, the question is, how?

I know of some other people that have used decoders to acheive this, but they seem to be made by themselves and are hideously complicated. is there another way? :?

thanks

Nick

Edited by retrogamer1990
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I use a Hagstrom Electronics encoder to connect my 1200xl keyboard to my pc and it works great. In fact, I'm typing this right now on my vintage Atari. You'll need to locate a diagram showing the 800xl keyboard matrix and then it's just a matter of connecting the matrix lines to the encoder board. The Hagstrom unit comes with the pc software you'll need to remap the keys. One problem you'll have with the 800xl keyboard is doesn't have enough keys to do all the really useful pc functions.

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Write an atari program that sends the keystrokes out through SIO or a serial port. Write a Windows program that reads the keystrokes, translates them if needed, and stuffs them into the windows keystroke queue.

 

 

Good idea, but that would mean he'd have to fit an 800xl mobo into the 2600 case along with the pc. Doubt there is that much room, plus you have to boot two computers just to use it. Since all he's going for is the keyboard itself, the encoder route is the easiest.

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hi,

doing a project here that involves turning a 2600 to a PC, whilst keeping the original look. :)

anyways, I want to use an old, non working 800XL to use as the keyboard, the question is, how?

I know of some other people that have used decoders to acheive this, but they seem to be made by themselves and are hideously complicated. is there another way? :?

thanks

Nick

 

This Mini Keyboard will fit into a 1200xl with a smalll amount of Mod'ing.

http://www.keytops.com/cherry/ack595.htm

 

Waste of a good 1200xl IMHO.

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I use a Hagstrom Electronics encoder to connect my 1200xl keyboard to my pc and it works great. In fact, I'm typing this right now on my vintage Atari. You'll need to locate a diagram showing the 800xl keyboard matrix and then it's just a matter of connecting the matrix lines to the encoder board. The Hagstrom unit comes with the pc software you'll need to remap the keys. One problem you'll have with the 800xl keyboard is doesn't have enough keys to do all the really useful pc functions.

 

thanks for that. so what exactly do I need to do to get it to interface?

I am pretty good with computers, but I am not so good with old computers and their interfaces!

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I use a Hagstrom Electronics encoder to connect my 1200xl keyboard to my pc and it works great. In fact, I'm typing this right now on my vintage Atari. You'll need to locate a diagram showing the 800xl keyboard matrix and then it's just a matter of connecting the matrix lines to the encoder board. The Hagstrom unit comes with the pc software you'll need to remap the keys. One problem you'll have with the 800xl keyboard is doesn't have enough keys to do all the really useful pc functions.

 

thanks for that. so what exactly do I need to do to get it to interface?

I am pretty good with computers, but I am not so good with old computers and their interfaces!

 

First, you need to map out the keyboard matrix. If you look at the keyboard connector, you'll see it's a row of 27 pins, each of which connects to a trace that winds its way around the keyboard connecting to keyswitch pins along the way. When a keyswitch is pressed, it forms a connection between two of the connector pins. For example, pressing the SPACE key connects pins 2 and 21 (assuming I counted correctly). Do this for each key and you can map out the entire keyboard matrix, e.g., SPACE = 2, 21; A = 4, 18; and so on.

 

Next, you need to purchase the encoder from Hagstrom Electronics and hook it up. That's just a matter of soldering on some lines from the keyboard to the encoder. After that, it's just a matter of using the software to set up the right key combinations on your pc and your pc will think it's a regular pc keyboard.

 

Good luck with your project.

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I've done something similar on a couple of occasions, although I never bought any fancy parts - I just did it "the hard way". For example, the keyboard I use on my main system at home is a Zenith terminal keyboard I bought from a surplus company. I hacked it up and connected it to the encoder board scavenged from a crummy USB Compaq keyboard. Basically, you need to:

 

Take apart a modern PC keyboard. Inside you'll find two membranes with traces, separated by a membrane with holes in it. Trace out each side of the membrane, so you know the layout of the connections on the encoder board. The board in a modern PC keyboard is only about the size of a business card.

 

Take a knife or a dremel tool and cut all the traces on the keyboard you want to interface. Basically, you isolate all the switches from each other.

 

Rewire the keyboard manually to match the layout of the PC's membranes - manually, using wire, and connect it onto the encoder board from the PC.

 

There you go! It's more work than the other solutions, but it's really not hard - just tedious. Took me a couple hours. But, you don't have to buy any special hardware, there's nothing to program, and the resulting keyboard is 100% compatible with the PC.

 

I've done this a few times - like when I built a PC/clone into the case of an Apple IIe.

 

-Ian

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Note that the above only works on keyboards that are made from switches soldered to a circuit board. Having never seen the Atari 800xl keyboard (at least, not remembered), I don't know if it is or not. If it's something else, like a membrane keyboard, then obviously, the "rewire the thing" trick doesn't work.

 

-Ian

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Note that the above only works on keyboards that are made from switches soldered to a circuit board. Having never seen the Atari 800xl keyboard (at least, not remembered), I don't know if it is or not. If it's something else, like a membrane keyboard, then obviously, the "rewire the thing" trick doesn't work.

 

-Ian

 

Yeah, I forgot about this "low budget approach" It will work for the 600/800xl keyboards, but not 1200xl's.

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